Julie Mehretu in conversation with Thelma Golden

Julie Mehretu was born in Addis Ababa in 1970 and lives and works in New York. She has exhibited widely including solo exhibitions at Serralves Museum, Porto and Centro Botín, Santander (2017); Gebre Kristos Desta Center, Addis Ababa and Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle (2016); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2010); Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin (2009); Detroit Institute of Art and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek (2007); MUSAC, Léon (2006); St Louis Art Museum (2005); REDCAT, Los Angeles and Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo (2004) and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2003). In 2005 Mehretu was the recipient of the American Art Award from the Whitney Museum of American Art, as well as the prestigious MacArthur Fellows Award. In 2015 she was awarded the US Department of State Medal of Arts Award. In 2017, a monumental two-part painting, ‘HOWL, eon (I, II)’ commissioned by San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California was unveiled as a major, long-term installation in the lobby of the museum. An upcoming survey co-organised by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the Whitney Museum, New York, opens at LACMA in Autumn 2019 and will tour to other major US venues throughout 2020.

Thelma Golden is Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem where she began her career in 1987 before joining the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1988. After a decade at the Whitney, she returned to the Studio Museum in 2000 as Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Programs, and was named Director and Chief Curator in 2005. Golden was appointed to the Committee for the Preservation of the White House by President Obama in 2010, and in 2015 joined the Barack Obama Foundation’s Board of Directors. Golden is a 2008 Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute and is the recipient of the 2016 Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence. In 2015, she was appointed as a Ford Foundation Art of Change Visiting Fellow and in 2017, Golden was honored with both the Outstanding Contributions to the Arts Award from the Americans for the Arts and the Groundbreaker Award from Prospect.4 New Orleans. In 2018, Golden was awarded a J. Paul Getty Medal and honored by Columbia University with an honorary degree. Golden is an active lecturer and panelist speaking about contemporary art and culture at national and international institutions, including TED and TEDx conferences. Born in St. Albans, Queens, Golden currently resides in Harlem.

Talks are free and seats can be reserved from 11am on the day of each talk at the auditorium.